Power shift?
 

Perusing the standings, there appears to be an unexpected development. There are fewer teams in the East sitting below .500 than there are in the West.

East: 5

Pittsburgh, Montreal, Florida, Carolina, Washington

West: 8

Chicago, Nashville, Columbus, Minnesota, Calgary, Dallas, Phoenix, San Jose


Granted that the standings are deceptive, but doesn't it look like the East is beginning to assert itself, moreso than in previous years?

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5 of those WC teams are sitting in a position where if they win their next game they won't be under .500 any longer.

I noticed that in degroat's power rankings, the top four teams are in the East.

This could also be interpreted as reflecting a higher degree of parity in the Western Conference.

If you add up the records of the teams in each conference, the East is 6 games above .500 - meaning that in the inter-conference games the East has won 6 more times so far.

In the past few seasons this has been tipped to the West, on average the West has been .514 at the end of the season over the last 3 years. It could be a sign that the East has gotten stronger and the West has gotten weaker.....or just a sign that teams in the East are beating up on the weaker teams in the West. (And yes, I know Philly beat Vancouver and NJ beat Colorado.) I'd have to really look at who's played who to establish whether that's the case or not....and right now I don't feel like doing it.

No, it can't. The east is 38-26-9-4 against the west.


Math used to be that easy when every game was always worth 2 points. Now, every time an in-conference game has an overtime goal it makes that conference's net record appear better.

It seems to me that less than a quarter of the way through the season is a little early to imply any powershifts.

Yea.. but doesn't take into consideration who has played. It is possible that teams like Philly, NJ, etc. have played doormats in the WC thus skewing that.

I do think the East is getting better, but I do believe that the parity issue is large.

It is early in the season too. I recall the East was stronger than the West in the first quarter of the 2002-2003 season too.

Colorado, Detroit, and Dallas (western conference division champs last season) are a combined 3-12 against the East.

Just a year ago the West was thought to have the powerhouses, but do you really feel the same about Detroit, Dallas, Colorado, or any of the teams now you may have felt the past couple of years. The west got knocked down a knotch, and the east is enjoying a growth spurt of teams like Atlanta, not to mention teams like Ottawa & Tampa Bay.

I still think that the majority of the weak teams are in the East, and win/loss records between the two confrences will always be slightly flawed due to the differences in talent level.

I think it is too soon to know if there is a power shift. It may just be a matter of the East having more teams that got off to a hot start and it may even out later in the year.

I do think the fact the the NHL is not even pretending to call obstruction this year probably favors the East.

Ottawa has been a top team for quite awhile now. Nothing new here. In all actuality, the Senators are struggling to be the powerhouse they should be right now and are underachieving for the first time in years.

If I remember correctly they weren't winning alot of games in the beginning of the last year too. I think they will be allright.

For what it's worth, a points earned breakdown by division:

Atlantic: 82
Northeast: 96
Southeast: 83

East Total: 161

Central: 89
Northwest: 95
Pacific: 83

West Total: 167


In my humble statistical opinion, there probably aren't enough games played to make any point difference statistically significant.

The west has also played five more team-games than the east, and have earned five more 'bonus points' (overtime losses in in-conference games) than the east.

Just one note- the Bruins have beaten Colorado, Vancouver and Dallas twice. Actually, the Bruins record against the Western Conference (8-0-1-0) is a major factor in the shift! Take that record out of the equation and the two conferences would be a whole lot closer.

Be ware the dangers of doing math inside your own head. Here's an update just to clear my conscience of any mathematical wrong-doing:

Atlantic: 81 GP 92 P 1.13 PPG
Northeast: 85 GP, 96 P 1.12 PPG
Southeast: 87 GP, 83 P 0.95 PPG

EAST: 253 GP, 271 P 1.07 PPG


Central: 86 GP, 89 P 1.03 PPG
Northwest: 86 GP, 95 P 1.10 PPG
Pacific: 87 GP, 83 P 0.95 PPG

WEST: 259 GP, 267 P 1.03 PPG

As noted before, this does not include any "bonus points" for in-conference OT losses. Apparently the West has 5 more.

Hate to break this to you, but a point is a point. There wouldn't be near as many OTL if the system wasn't designed to give OTLosers a point.

you dont get a point for loseing in OT you get a point for going into OT(tie) you get an EXTRA point if you WIN in ot.

Uh, I was just explaining how it effects a conference's cumulative number of points. As in, the 15 west teams have more total points than the 15 east teams because (in part) 5 more west-versus-west OT decisions awarded 3 points to the conference's net point total, rather than the typical 2 points.

You can't honestly tell me the west is 5 points 'better' than the east because their wst-versus-west games were decided in overtime more frequently than east-versus-east. On a team-by-team basis, yes, a point is a point and each individual team has earned what it earned, OT win or OT loss. But the conference as a whole doesn't become 'better' because they played more 3-point-awarding games than the other conference. It skews the conference-total point numbers in a way that is NOT representative of how strong each conference actually is.

Total points is meaningless though, if you want to compare conferences. An Atlanta/Tampa game tells you nothing about Vancouver, Edmonton etc. Compare the head to head East vs West records only.

The last few years, the West has had the superior record, so far this year the East is in the lead. They've had a good start, but we can't really judge it until the end of the year.

That was my point. Back when every NHL game was worth exactly two points (either two for the winner none for the loser, or one each for a tie), at the end of the season you needed only subtract one conference's total points from the other and the difference would be the number of points one conference earned at the expense of the other - the differnece would define the won-lost record of all Campbell-versus-Wales games that season. The in-conference games would iron out (because each conference played an equal number of games in-conference and each game awarded that conference exactly two points).

That 'simple math' doesn't work anymore because an in-conference game no longer always results in exactly two points in the conference. An in-conference game *can* award the conference three points. Thus, you can no longer derive the cross-conference record from simple point comparison.